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The mayor of Rockford, Illinois, Larry Morrissey, has left New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Morrissey, who is identified as an independent made the announcement during a Tea Party even in Illinois according to a Daily Caller article.

The mayor cited the expanding anti gun mission of the organization as his reason for leaving. Morrissey made the following comments,

“I’ve dropped out of a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG),” Rockford, Illinois mayor Larry Morrissey said at a Rockford Tea Party town hall Saturday as the crowd burst into applause. “The reason why I joined the group in the first place is because I took the name for what it said. Against ‘Illegal’ guns.”

“The challenge that we see day in and day out in the city of Rockford is not dealing primarily with assault weapons or machine guns, automatic weapons. It’s dealing with a typical handgun. All of those typical weapons are usually in the hands of people who are prohibited from having them,” Morrissey said.

“As the original mission swayed, that’s when I decided that it was no longer in line with my beliefs. …So that’s why I dropped out,” Morrissey explained. “The focus should not be against law-abiding citizens. We should be focusing our enforcement on folks who have no right to carry a gun, concealed or otherwise.”

Morrissey also said he supports the state of Illinois getting a legal method for concealed carry and will get a permit himself once there is a process available.

Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns certainly goes beyond the mission of curtailing gun violence. The group is now pushing for outright weapons bans and invasive background checks. With Bloomberg at the helm it can probably be assumed the group would like to use Bloomberg’s own draconian gun policies that he has implemented in NYC across the country.